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The Shadow Hour Kate Riordan 9781405917445 Books

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The Shadow Hour Kate Riordan 9781405917445 Books

I really enjoyed this historical drama which is told in two timelines with Fenix House near Cheltenham at its centre. In 1922 Grace joins the household as Governess to Lukas, the son of David Pemberton. What the Pembertons do not know is that fifty years earlier, Grace’s grandmother Harriet was also Governess for a short while there, albeit a time that had a huge impact on the family and Harriet herself. The read unfolds from both perspectives to reveal a story of fated romances, drama, intrigue and long hidden secrets with a little dash of the supernatural. I really liked the characters – especially Grace, who I just couldn’t help developing a soft spot for. There were times when the story felt a little slow and I kept wondering if I was getting bogged down with unnecessary “events” but at the end of the read, all those little things that had been slightly niggling me suddenly all came together and made sense. I thought the writing really suited the times the story was set in – it felt very natural and all the dialogue seemed realistic for those times as well. I wasn’t too sure about the ending. There is a shocker of a twist, but I couldn’t help feeling that it was maybe a twist too far. In addition, I could have just done with one last chapter just to round a couple of things off nicely. Having said that, it is a thoroughly enjoyable read and is highly recommended. I hope I haven’t sounded too negative because on the whole I really liked this book. I received an advance review copy from the publishers via Netgalley for review purposes.


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The Shadow Hour Kate Riordan 9781405917445 Books Reviews

I really liked this book, which really reminded me of the gothic stories I read as a teen. My only critic point would be that it was a bit too long...
4.5 stars
I thought I'd like this. It should have been right up my street. I enjoyed Kate Riordan's first book and it's got a Kate Morton-esque feel about it unravelling a family mystery with dual timeframes in 1876 and 1922. But it's too long for what it is and then the author seemed to struggle with structural issues and had to do all these workarounds towards the end to bring it together. I stopped caring.
Harriet Jenner is just twenty-one when she walks through the gates of Fenix House. Reeling from a personal tragedy, she doesn't expect her new life as a governess to be easy. But she certainly does not foresee the spell Fenix House will cast.Almost fifty years later, Harriet's granddaughter Grace follows in her footsteps. For Grace, raised on Harriet's spellbinding stories, Fenix House is a fairy tale; a magical place suspended in time.But the now-faded grandeur of the mansion soon begins to reveal the holes in Harriet's story and Grace finds herself in a place of secrets and shadows.
This is a great read, well written and beautifully atmospheric. The author draws together the two halves of the story, weaving them into one in a spellbinding story. This is the first of Ms Riordan's books I've read and I'll now go and get her first. I received a copy of this novel via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The year is 1922 and Grace has been hired to be a little boy's governess in the crumbling Fenix House. She is following in her grandmother's footsteps who was governess there years ago. Grace has heard stories since she was little about the house, but she realized when she arrives at Fenix House that her grandmother's stories perhaps not are all true. Why did her grandmother that she should work at the house and what really happened all the years ago when her grandmother worked a summer at Fenix House?

I read The Girl in the Photograph by Kate Riordan last year and liked the book and I knew that I wanted to read this one when I saw that this one also had to a story about two women in different eras, one in 1878 and one in 1922. In 1878, we meet Harriet who has lost her father and has to work as a governess since she because her father's business crashed. Around 40 years later her granddaughter Grace also takes the job as a governess. Both women have what her grandmother calls “glimmers”; vague visions of the future. Grace realized quite soon that everything her grandmother told her is not entirely true. For instance, the room she gets is not the one that her grandmother described for her, but it's the room that every governess has slept in. And, that is just a little thing, the more she learns the more she realizes that her grandmother has told her quite a lot of embellished stories while the truth seems to be that the summer all those years ago is a much darker story.

There was a moment around 60-70% into the book when I felt a bit frustrated with the fact that there were 200 pages left of the book. I did enjoy the story, but I felt that a 500+ pages book need to have a story that keeps the interest up all the time and right at that moment I felt that too much of the time was spent on less interesting events and I wanted to know what really happened in 1878. Fortunately, the story picked up the pace and I was rewarded with a really good ending.

I enjoyed most of the book, I did, however, feel that the "romance" in 1878 was a bit predictable. But Harriet's past with the wife in the house made the story really good. The book was a bit darker that I expected. I thought it would just be a granddaughter discovering that her grandmother had a different past than she had been told since she was little. Which, in a way is true, but still the story turned out different from what had I expected, which I liked.

I liked both storylines. Sometimes a storyline is weaker than the other, but in this book both are interesting to read. I also think that this book is better than The Girl in the Photograph. The story is more interesting and I loved they way Riordan decided to end the book.
I really enjoyed this historical drama which is told in two timelines with Fenix House near Cheltenham at its centre. In 1922 Grace joins the household as Governess to Lukas, the son of David Pemberton. What the Pembertons do not know is that fifty years earlier, Grace’s grandmother Harriet was also Governess for a short while there, albeit a time that had a huge impact on the family and Harriet herself. The read unfolds from both perspectives to reveal a story of fated romances, drama, intrigue and long hidden secrets with a little dash of the supernatural. I really liked the characters – especially Grace, who I just couldn’t help developing a soft spot for. There were times when the story felt a little slow and I kept wondering if I was getting bogged down with unnecessary “events” but at the end of the read, all those little things that had been slightly niggling me suddenly all came together and made sense. I thought the writing really suited the times the story was set in – it felt very natural and all the dialogue seemed realistic for those times as well. I wasn’t too sure about the ending. There is a shocker of a twist, but I couldn’t help feeling that it was maybe a twist too far. In addition, I could have just done with one last chapter just to round a couple of things off nicely. Having said that, it is a thoroughly enjoyable read and is highly recommended. I hope I haven’t sounded too negative because on the whole I really liked this book. I received an advance review copy from the publishers via Netgalley for review purposes.